


A Different Mastery

by iberiandoctor (jehane)



Series: To Master and to Serve [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Sex, Biting, Consent Play, Dom/sub Play, Domestic Bliss, Jealousy, M/M, Possessive Sex, Post-Seine, Ties & Cravats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 19:21:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7726684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehane/pseuds/iberiandoctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valjean decides to switch things up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Different Mastery

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ellamason](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellamason/gifts).



> An out-take and sequel of sorts to [In His Masters’ Service](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7186883). Beta by Sir_Bedevere.

The note was written on frivolous lilac paper with embossed dots that Javert would never have purchased. It was folded in two and propped neatly on Javert’s side table, against the bottle of oil made from Rue Plumet's wild summer roses that Javert occasionally used for his knee and more often for other parts of him.

It had his name written on the outer surface in Valjean's penmanship, and appended to it that old prefix, _"Insp."_

"Gone to M. Lonnier's. Will be out for dinner tonight," read the interior side of the note. It was signed with Valjean's initial, and meticulously noted the time of its writing as being the fifteenth hour of that day.

The note was unprecedented in so many ways. Javert tried to recall the last time Valjean had dined out without him – last year, perhaps, with the Gillenormand family? He also tried at the same time to decipher Valjean's short message, but his investigative skills honed over long years of police work were clearly no match for the secrets of the human heart. 

After the incident of the past spring, he felt that they were getting better at speaking their mind. Valjean would pour him a second glass of wine, or Javert would sit for ten minutes longer than his habit at the dinner table, and in that way they usually found their way to conversation about their desires, both in bed and out of it, without anyone being required to storm out of a room or to criticise the other's attire or embark on a five day enforced march through the streets of Paris. 

Since then there had been several such conversations, and many different expressions of those desires, all of them pleasurable. Some more than just pleasurable, truth be told, so much so that they had been recently compelled to invest in a new bed. Javert had accompanied Valjean to the woodworkers' without a word of complaint and let his friend rub slow, meaningful circles against the palm of his hand, like a promise that there would be restraint against the new bedposts, and a slow and satisfying unravelling before that day's end. 

And, now that he thought about it, after church on Sunday night Valjean had indeed poured him a second glass of wine, although they had not then discussed anything more intimate than the stationery they had both used as mayor and inspector of the town of Montreuil-sur-mer, now more than a decade ago. Also, on this very morning before Javert had left for his shift at the Archives, Valjean had cast several fairly communicative looks at him across their breakfast table, which Javert had assumed would herald another more intimate conversation over wine after dinner tonight.

But now this note, written on foppish, disagreeable notepaper that they had never used either in Montreuil-sur-mer or here in Paris, was not at all communicative. Javert had no idea what new game Valjean was playing at, or whether it was a game at all.

He was fairly certain the note was a summons. And if not... well. He had been told where to start looking for his missing friend.

  


***

  


Lonnier's was a couturier at the corner of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. By Javert's watch, he arrived upon its polished stone doorstep at precisely a quarter before seventeen hours.

The shop was clearly designed to encourage gentlemen of means to part with their hard-earned napoleons. Under its conspiratorial thatched eaves and high ceilings, its walls were decorated with portraits of elegantly-clothed men of military bearing and oil paintings of ships and hunting scenes and battles, giving the impression that well-bred gentlemen of prowess and virility were also well-garbed to boot. Long vitrines showed off the season's wares to the street and let in the last of the afternoon light.

Javert glanced around the shop. Rows of shelves displayed fabric of an extensive variety and colour, from which it appeared shirts and jackets and waistcoats and breeches could be made. There was a separate section dedicated to cravats of every hue. 

At this hour there were only few customers, and none of them was Valjean.

With his keen recollection for faces, the former Inspector Javert recognised the balding man behind the counter as having previously served them in the spring. His rotund form was dressed in very well starched shirtsleeves and a sombre charcoal waistcoat that showed off his own merchandise. He was giving orders to a younger man, who was wrapping a customer's purchases in store paper.

When Javert approached the counter he looked up at him with a professional smile. Then he looked more closely at Javert, a small furrow appearing between his brows.

"Monsieur, I never forget a customer." He pursed his lips at Javert's plain black cravat and black jacket, which had clearly not been purchased in his establishment. "Except I cannot quite recall the circumstances ... ah! You once accompanied another gentleman to these humble halls."

Javert gritted his teeth together: it would not do to display his rising irritation with a potential informant, at least before the information had been extracted. He made himself speak slowly and calmly. "Yes. His name is Fauchelevent. You might recall that on that occasion he purchased three white cravats by mistake? A large man, slightly shorter than myself, somewhat older, white-haired." 

He did not say: _that man's real name is Jean Valjean. He drags his right leg from nineteen years in chains. His body bears marks from the lash at the bagne and it is more beautiful than anything you will ever see. Although he walks the streets of Paris freely, he is nevertheless my willing prisoner, and I have never deserved his love or his trust._

And then, hot on the heels of those thoughts came the following, fierce as a brand: _Though it now seems he may need to be reminded that he is mine._

Instead Javert said: "Have you seen him this afternoon? He said he would be here."

" _'He said he would be ...'_ I see, he told you to join him here! Well, then, Monsieur, all is perfectly well and understood! As it happens, M. Fauchelevent and the other gentleman have left for the Ledoyen across the next street."

Javert raised his eyebrows. "The _other_ gentleman?" Slowly, a dangerous image began to form in his mind: soft brown curls, avaricious eyes, a generous, daring mouth used to having its own way. "...And what might this gentleman be called?"

The rotund proprietor was frowning, as if belatedly trying to decide whether there was in fact any understanding between M. Fauchelevent and this grim, unfashionably-dressed man as he had first surmised. "Why, I... I could not possibly say, Monsieur."

"You do not need to," Javert said icily; he swept out of the store with a wide flourish of his cane and towering hat.

  


***

  


Javert crossed the bustling Avenue des Champs-Élysées to Place Louis XV, where the brightly-lit facade of the Ledoyen could be clearly seen: a two-storey neo-classical pavilion set in well-tended terraced garden.

It was the sort of bourgeois establishment that Valjean had always been too self-effacing to enter. Javert had never set foot inside it, either, although he was familiar with the venue – it was a luxury restaurant favoured by artists and former intimates of Robespierre and Danton, those notorious purveyors of post-Revolution excesses. It had the reputation amongst the Prefecture as a hotbed for anti-royalists and conspirators, dictators and bankers. 

As such, it was the exact sort of venue which might be proposed by a man who had no honourable intent.

Javert felt an icy calm descend over him as he stepped over the arched marble threshold. Coolly, he entered the well-appointed foyer with its oak flooring and gilt-panelled walls and continued walking towards the dining area.

"Monsieur, can I help you...? Monsieur!" The maître d'hôtel, dressed smartly in the white jacket of the establishment, came rapidly up to him to intercept him.

Javert paused mid-stride, drew himself up to his full height, and fixed him with his most glacial glare. The man's eyes widened with some discernment, and he said, "M. l'Inspecteur, is it? We do not wish any trouble here; perhaps I may be of assistance? Would you wish me to summon M. Ledoyen himself?"

Clearly the man had a keen eye for the police and was familiar with trouble, as one would expect of the senior waiter of an establishment that harboured tyrants and persons up to no good. Javert said, grimly, "There is no need. And, no need to call me M. l'Inspecteur, for I am not that any longer."

"Undercover, I understand," the maître d'hôtel said, sagely. "The hour is still early, we have not yet seen our usual dinner crowd arrive yet to sup. Might you be looking for a specific individual?"

"You could say that," Javert said. That individual's face had in fact not left his mind since the afternoon, and it was now accompanied most unpleasantly by the face of another. With his policeman's unerring recollection, he said, "The banker, M. Schifferly. He is here?"

"Indeed," the maître d'hôtel said. "His usual table upstairs. Oh dear, I hope he has not run into another spot of trouble."

Javert said through his teeth, "I hope so too, for his sake."

The main dining hall was large, possessed of many huge windows overlooking the gardens, ornate ceilings, and massive paintings of pastoral landscapes. The hour was early and only a few white-covered tables were occupied. The maître d'hôtel led Javert discreetly up the stairs to the historic second floor rooms. 

"The third door on your right," he said. "We have just served the main course. It is the mountain lamb, our house specialty." The man paused, looking down. Hesitantly, he said, "I pray you, perhaps you would wish to allow the gentlemen to enjoy their dish before you ... interrupt them? I do not imagine the dining at the maison d'arret can be as fine as this."

Javert held back a bark of laughter. Certainly this man was no stranger to the high-class criminal element. "Indeed," he said. "Why do we not give them a few moments to enjoy themselves?"

"You are generous, M. le ... I mean, Monsieur," the maître d'hôtel said, obsequiously. "If you wish to stand here by the pillar, you will be able to observe them through the gap in the door in an unobstructed manner, and in that way manage to assure yourself that they will not slip away from you?"

"Not to worry," Javert said. His clenched jaw had begun to ache. "I will not permit them to escape me."

The maître d'hôtel looked even more nervous. Javert supposed his grimness would unsettle even the most hardened acquaintance of the police, but he could not bring himself to care. He took up the indicated place beside the pillar and put his eye to the gap in the door.

The secret spyhole afforded him the perfect view of the two gentleman seated at a square table set for two. Rather than facing across from each other in the usual formal business setting, they sat at an angle to each other in the exact same intimate way as Javert and Valjean sat in their dining room in Rue Plumet, with Valjean at the head of the table and Javert at his right hand.

Now Valjean was seated in the seat facing the door, and at his right hand sat that banker, Pierre Schifferly, trespassing on everything that belonged to Javert. 

Candles and silverware and cutlery lay on the white tablecloth like riches before them, the arrayed feast a far cry from the modest fare which graced their table and which Valjean preferred. At least Javert had always assumed Valjean had preferred it.

Javert realised that Schifferly was rather older than he had first appeared to be when they had met him at the Pontmercy residence: perhaps a decade and a half older than Valjean's son-in-law, certainly more than a decade younger than Javert himself. The candlelight flattered him: his gold-brown hair, cut fashionably short, curled becomingly across his well-formed brow, his classical features softened by the dimple in his cheek. What Javert could see of his trim body was dressed in a dinner jacket that looked as if it cost more than Javert's annual pension. A shameless silver-trimmed scarlet cravat was knotted à la Byron at his throat. 

Despite the delectable fare piled on the plates before him, Schifferly had not taken up his fork. Instead, he was resting his chin on one fist, gazing intently at his dinner companion.

That companion made the trappings of the elegant table seem fragile and over-delicate. He was looking rather ill at ease in his ancient dinner jacket, which appeared a touch too small for his brawny shoulders and massive arms. He toyed with his plate; his broad face looked unusually flushed. The candlelight caught in his white hair and white silk cravat tied à la mathematique: in this exotic setting, he might have been a handsome, fascinating stranger, rather than the beloved friend with whom Javert spent his days and nights.

The banker spoke into the quiet. "You are very quiet, M. Fauchelevent," he said, smiling; his voice was full of money in the way of a man of ample means, accustomed to having his own desires satisfied.

"Am I? I find I am not used to conversation." Valjean frowned a little, looking as if he was considering whether that pronouncement was entirely true. He amended this to say, "At least, conversation in circumstances such as these. You might imagine I have never dined in such an establishment before, M. Schifferly."

Schifferly's dimple deepened. "Please call me Pierre," he said. "And I find that hard to believe. A man so distinguished — of such varied interests and knowledge —"

"I am a simple man," said Valjean, firmly. "My tastes are entirely simple. I am uncomfortable with excess, particularly when there is such need in the world."

Schifferly looked down, a sweep of gold-brown lashes upon his cheekbones. "Perhaps it is because you have never permitted yourself to indulge? If you were to allow yourself pleasure ... even one moment of it ... you might find your tastes to be less simple than you first believed." He looked back up at Valjean, his eyes an intense glaze, and shifted almost imperceptibly closer. 

Javert ground his teeth together at this display. He had never witnessed a seduction attempt before; prior to this evening he wondered how it was that men and women could be misled into romantic surrender. Now, listening to this man's intimate tones that hinted at untold delights which Valjean had never enjoyed, watching the hot, promising gaze of this master at work, he began to have an inkling. 

His Valjean was not so easily wooed, though. Humbly, self-deprecatingly, he shook his noble white head. "I really do not think that can be so. You do me too much honour, Pierre — I am but an old man, set in my ways and my tastes."

"You are hardly old, M. Fauchelevent ... may I call you Ultime?" 

"No one calls me that," Valjean said, which Javert knew to be true.

"Really?" Schifferly's voice slid half an octave lower, full of hidden suggestion. "And what is it that M. Javert calls you, I wonder?" 

"He calls me 'my dear'," Valjean said, simply, and Javert, hidden and watching, felt himself flush to his hat-line. 

"Does he now?" Schifferly murmured, his voice shading even darker. "I would imagine he holds you very dear indeed... Because, my dear M. Fauchelevent, you are a treasure." His eyes shone with the riches Javert had never possessed and could never bestow. "If you were my friend I would take you to dine in places such as this every day of the week, and I would not take no for an answer."

He reached warmly and naturally for Valjean's hand, and really this indignity was not to be endured for a moment longer.

Javert felt the ice-cold chill of his rage bear him up. He had almost missed this feeling: the savage taste of triumph, of descending upon the guilty as an avenging personage of judgment. Clothed once more in righteous fury, he slammed open the door and swept into the private room to confront the malefectors. 

Caught in the act, the banker's handsome, intent face went blank with shock and horror. Valjean — _his_ Valjean — looked almost relieved. In a small gesture that did not go unnoticed by Javert, he slid his large hand from under Schifferly's slender, be-ringed one.

Without waiting for an invitation, Javert took possession of the chair opposite Schifferly. He wrenched his hat off and cast it on the table, next to the plate of beef.

He said, "Good evening, gentlemen. It seems I am just in time." 

He turned to Valjean, trying to read the expression on his friend's face. "At least I hope I am in time. I was not entirely sure of your intent." 

He held out his own hand, and Valjean took it in his familiar clasp. Valjean's eyes gleamed with strong emotion that Javert thought he finally understood.

He had to give credit to the banker where credit was due. Even though Javert's presence must have startled Schifferly to the core, he quickly recovered his mask of equanimity, and his voice shook only a little when he said, "M. Javert! What an unexpected pleasure!"

Javert drawled, "Hardly a pleasure for you, since I have interrupted you in the act of invading upon occupied territory." He clasped Valjean's fingers possessively, continuing, "You seem like an intelligent man, Monsieur, so you should have expected that I would not stand for this frank announcement of wrongful conduct."

The banker lifted his chin proudly, and returned fire. "What is wrongful is that you have let this magnificent creature live so frugally in a rambling old house, and in clothes that are falling to tatters, and not treated him with the largesse he deserves."

So the suave banker had teeth after all! Javert grinned fiercely in appreciation, enjoyment surging through him. 

He said, savouring the moment, "M. Fauchelevent does not wish largesse, as you would know if you listened to what he had to say and were not deafened by your own petty desires. What he truly wishes is my ownership of him, to be possessed by me alone, and the _largesse_ that only I can give him. Is that not so, my dear?"

"Yes, Javert." Valjean was shaking, but it was not with fear.

"Well, then.” He leaned forward and fixed the banker with his most menacing smile. “Actually, M. Schifferly, you were right: this was quite pleasurable. For me, that is. I hope to make this evening even more pleasurable for my dearest friend." He reached across the table with his free hand and patted Schifferly’s white knuckles, not ungently. "And I ought to thank you for your regard for M. Fauchelevent, and for bringing home to me that which is truly important."

"Thank you for this fine meal, Pierre. Please accept my apologies for my poor company," said Valjean, sparing the banker a warm look, but Schifferly could not take his eyes from Javert’s piercing gaze, like a small, dazed animal who could not look away from the stare of a snake.

Javert experienced a rush of savage triumph, as hot as the cold rage had been and every bit as violent. "Come, let us depart," he said, getting to his feet; Valjean murmured, "As you wish," and clasped tightly to his hand.

  


***

  


Valjean allowed himself to be bundled into his coat and hat and hustled unceremoniously into a fiacre. Javert put his arm tightly around his friend, for once using his greater height to his advantage, allowing himself to believe that he could overpower Valjean’s massive strength. He crowded Valjean into the Utrecht velvet of the carriage. Valjean tried to huddle his large shoulders into the seat, making himself small, but not trying particularly effortfully to get away.

In fact it was obvious that Valjean was not trying _at all_ to get away. In the darkness of the swaying carriage Javert could hear Valjean’s uneven breathing, could feel the tension in his friend’s muscles, knew there was growing thickness between his thighs. They rode in silence, the anticipation between them mounting, intensifying, filling the space between them and the carriage.

At last, as the carriage rattled down the Rue Plumet, Javert remarked casually, "I should say, Jean, that you have been somewhat inconsiderate. Not just to me, but to M. Schifferly. What must that poor man think."

"He has been corresponding with me for a while since our dinner in March," Valjean confessed, "asking me to accompany him to Lonnier's, and to dine. I know I ought to have mentioned it to you, but I did not wish to cause you distress, or to put him in harm's way.” He made a tight gesture with his hand. “The last time we met at Cosette's house you looked as if you were going to strike him down like some wrathful officer of the law! But I did think ... I did wonder what it would be like to see him again.”

He added, thickly, "I wondered what it would be like if _you_ were to see me with him again."

The carriage came to a halt at their front gate. Javert found that he was having difficulty breathing himself. "Is that right?” he said softly. “And now you would not have to wonder. You could observe for yourself exactly how angry I was."

Valjean drew away to reach into his pocket for coins to pay the driver, and then he paused. "Are you still angry?" he asked tentatively.

"Very," Javert said, which was not at all true. He got out first and handed Valjean bodily out of the carriage.

Valjean was silent when Javert pushed open the gate and led him up the garden steps. He struggled visibly with himself as they entered their house. Finally, he managed, "Are you ... angry enough perhaps to ... chastise me for the liberties that I have taken?"

So this was what Valjean had intended? Javert grinned with all his teeth. It was not a completely novel approach for them; he had been the first to start it himself earlier this March without any conscious intent, but he would admit that Valjean was entirely entitled to take creative liberties with such an approach in this way. 

If his friend had been a more petty-spirited man, he might even have considered the afternoon’s escapade as rightful repayment for Javert’s previous inexcusable conduct, but such was Jean Valjean that he would never have considered any form of revenge, and had assured Javert that there had been nothing to forgive. 

Javert did not deserve him and never would. Indulging this latest whim was the least he could do.

He also had to admit that his breath was coming faster, anticipating it.

“If you are very sure,” he said to Valjean, slowly; seemingly unable to look at him, Valjean nodded once, a small jerk of his head.

Javert turned away from Valjean in order to compose himself. He shrugged out of his coat and hat and jacket. The coals were still smoking in the fireplace; the house was warm. 

He waited for Valjean to doff his outer garments, and then he took hold of Valjean by the wrist and rammed him backwards toward the wall beside the coat-hooks. Valjean made a soft noise, pushing against his grip, and then he capitulated, melting against the hard wood panelling and peeling wallpaper. Javert pinioned Valjean’s wrist over his head, leaned his full weight into Valjean’s solid body, slid his leg between Valjean’s thighs and immobilised Valjean beneath him so there could be no escape. 

With his free hand he seized Valjean’s face and turned it upwards to his.

"You are so fortunate I had not come to you in the guise of my former self. If it had been Inspector Javert that had seized upon you and your paramour, he would not have stinted to punish you. He would have thrown your bourgeois lover weeping into the cells and taken you as his prisoner.”

Valjean gasped for breath, yielding under Javert’s grasp; he looked up unresistingly into Javert’s face with a shame-faced desire that was unmistakable. They were so close that Javert could feel the pounding of Valjean’s heart against his own body.

Javert continued, “The Inspector would have handcuffed your hands with metal, he would have shoved you up against the darkest, filthiest wall and ripped down your trousers and taken you hard ..."

"No," Valjean breathed. "Not that. Not like that." Javert felt his friend tremble, felt the betraying hardness against his own thigh that gave the lie to the embarrassed words. 

“Do you think you are in a position to ask anything of the Inspector?” Javert’s hand slid to Valjean’s new cravat and tightened around it. “Did you permit that bourgeois to buy this for you?” 

“No,” Valjean said. “I would not. Please —“ 

He gestured urgently with his chin, and following his lead Javert pulled the knot of the cravat, the white silk straining under his fingers and coming loose around Valjean’s neck. The skin of Valjean’s bare throat was marked by the long years of toil under Toulon’s sun; Javert could almost see the marks of the collar that had once weighed it down, and it filled him with equal parts of longing and lust. 

“So, if you would not like the Inspector to put his irons on you, to take you in the cells, then what would you like?” he whispered against Valjean’s cheek.

Valjean’s colour was high. Their bodies were pressed so tightly against each other that there was barely room to breathe, leaving Javert in no doubt of his desire. “Let us go upstairs, if it pleases you,” he managed. “But first … I would be marked as yours.”

Javert grinned. It had been long years since the Inspector had been seized with madness for his convict’s capture, since he had longed to taste Valjean’s blood, but it seemed the hunger for each other, to devour each other, had not abated, and it leaped through his body at Valjean's invitation.

He tightened his grip; he leaned his face into Valjean’s neck; he took the bare skin between his sharp teeth. Carefully, deliberately, he sucked red marks into the vulnerable flesh. Valjean’s pulse fluttered beneath his lips, and Javert tasted rather than heard the sound that tore from Valjean’s throat.

“Like that?” Javert said, finally, subsiding. Valjean panted harshly under his grasp, head rolled back against the wall, jaw tilted to expose the fresh, angry bites. “You are mine indeed.”

“Yes,” Valjean said, tightly. “I’m yours, I won’t resist you, I will do as you bid.”

“You’re coming quietly? That’s good to know,” Javert said. He took his weight on his feet, slid his arm around Valjean’s waist and pulled him from the wall; he pressed a quick kiss to Valjean’s lips to reassure him he would not let him stumble. Valjean leaned yieldingly against him, eyes dark with dangerous trust. 

It was a slow climb up the stairs to the bedroom, to the new bed. True to his word, Valjean offered no resistance, meekly letting Javert bear him forward as if Javert was truly stronger than he was, and when Javert kissed him again he dug his fingers into Javert’s shoulders and kissed back.

Javert took off his jacket and waistcoat and pushed Valjean onto the bed. "Lie still," he told Valjean, and despite his great strength Valjean lay down upon the pillows as obediently as the most biddable of prisoners. Quiescent on his back, the marks very red against his neck, it was plain to see that Valjean was now fully erect, the outline of his cock jutting visibly against the fabric of his trousers.

The sight of his friend, docile and vulnerable and fully aroused, stirred a responsive throb in the pit of Javert's belly. He crawled onto the bed, seized Valjean by the collar and tore his shirt open as far as it could go, exposing the muscles of his broad chest. In answer Valjean let out a shuddering groan; he flung one forearm over his face to hide his abashed flush.

"I said you were to hold still," Javert said sharply, pulling that forearm away, and Valjean froze, his face burning. "I see I am forced to take further measures —" He seized the white cravat hanging loose about Valjean's neck and tugged it free. Catching Valjean's wrists in his hands, he knotted the silk about them in a dead-knot, binding them tightly together, then, climbing on top of Valjean, he forced Valjean's arms above his head. 

"Perhaps now you will obey," he said. His own need was an urgent song within him; he could barely contain himself. He mouthed marks into the hairy, powerful chest shamefully exposed beneath his, the nipples hardened to tight nubs for him to run his tongue against, and Valjean groaned again, his breath coming in shallow pants between clenched teeth.

Javert drew himself up from Valjean's breast so he could put his face close to his friend's. Valjean's eyes had slid half-shut; his body was shivering from the effort of holding himself still in obedience to Javert's directive.

"Do you like this?" Javert muttered against Valjean's cheek. "Is it not a better use of the silk?"

"Yes," Valjean murmured thickly. The large hands above the silk were clenched so tightly their knuckles had turned white. "Please."

Javert grinned fiercely, leaning his weight onto Valjean's hips and beginning to rock himself slowly and deliberately against Valjean's clothed prick. "So much better," he said. "You will never wear this thing again, save when I wrap it around your wrists and use it to hold you down," and Valjean shuddered as his control frayed and he arched his back involuntarily to thrust himself against Javert's erection.

"I will never wear it again," he panted; "Javert, I am so sorry, I cannot — please, I need —"

"I know what it is you need," Javert said, his blood very loud in his veins; he sat up, took hold of Valjean's ancient trousers and pulled them from Valjean's hips. When Valjean was unclothed, he reached across the table to the rose oil.

Valjean’s cheeks were scarlet; he breathed harshly as Javert worked his oil-slick fingers past the tight muscle of his entrance and began to stretch him mercilessly. Javert knew his friend would have hidden his face with his forearm again in shame if his wrists were not pinioned above his head. His mouth formed words he was too embarrassed to voice. He spread his thighs in mute supplication, his flushed prick straining upwards towards Javert. 

"Do not hide from me," Javert said, desire making him unsteady. "I know what you want, there is no need to be ashamed." Urgently, he unfastened his trousers and hauled Valjean across his own thighs and buried himself in Valjean's body. 

Valjean gasped as if he had been stabbed through the heart, and Javert leaned down so he could kiss him on the mouth, hard and quick. "Do not forget that you are mine," he said; he attempted to speak harshly but in this moment the words emerged as an entreaty: as if their positions were reversed and Valjean was the ruthless captor, Javert the bound, defenceless supplicant. 

"I am yours," Valjean said, chokingly, "I have always been yours. Please, do not stop —"

"I will not," Javert said, beginning to thrust slowly, Valjean's body pliant and yielding beneath his. He trembled with the agonising effort of going as slowly and cruelly as he could. He held Valjean's wrists with one big hand; with the other he took hold of Valjean's prick and started to stroke. He put his mouth beside Valjean's ear. "Not until you realise you are mine, and not even then, not until you realise nothing else will satisfy you, until you have spent yourself completely in my arms."

Valjean moaned, fighting for control and losing; he turned his face to one side, exposing the line of his throat. Javert squeezed and felt Valjean judder underneath him and jerk helplessly into his fist. He fastened his mouth under Valjean's jaw, over one of the marks he had just made, and that was the final trigger: Valjean made a high, keening sound and spent himself in a relentless gush.

Triumph flooded through Javert. He tried to repeat, "You are mine," but pleasure overtook him in a fierce wave and he could only groan wordlessly as he found his own release.

Once he returned to himself, he tore loose the bonds around Valjean's wrists. Valjean gathered him into the big arms which could likely have broken free of the flimsy silk at any time, but which had surrendered obediently to Javert's authority.

After a while, Javert said, "I believe I have ruined your new cravat."

"I do have three more exactly like it," Valjean said, his voice drowsy and satiated.

"Was this why you bought it?"

Valjean protested, "I had to buy something from Lonnier’s, it was only polite. Besides, I thought you might make better use of it this way."

Javert snorted and settled into a more comfortable position, putting his arms around Valjean's shoulders. "Your trousers, too, I fear they might be beyond repair."

"It was time I purchased a new pair," Valjean said with equanimity.

"Let me. That bourgeois paramour of yours told me I was remiss in keeping you in rags, and I will not stand for it."

Valjean smiled his acquiescence and settled more closely in Javert's arms.

Javert ran a possessive thumb over the welts on Valjean's throat. "You know, that soft man, that peach of a banker, is never going to be able to hold you down like this, to take you like this."

Valjean's eyes focused with some effort; he frowned, thinking on this. "I have very little sense of these things, but I suspect Pierre might actually prefer to be the one being taken instead of it being the other way around?"

"Well," Javert said, "depending on what you had wished with him, you could have just invited him to tea and enquired of him what he did prefer."

"I did not wish anything of the sort with him. Truly, you are everything I could ever want," Valjean said. Then he thought further on this as well and ventured: "Unless it is something you yourself would wish, Javert. I did plan to broach this more directly with you, truly, but then his note arrived after you left after breakfast today, and I did think you might not mind my seizing the moment in this way. I am sorry; I believe I only thought about myself."

Javert said, "You think so little about yourself, I want to applaud every occasion you do it. In any case, after what has happened, if that man has not fled Paris by now, he is far more blinded by love than I would credit."

"He was quite persistent after Cosette's party," Valjean noted. "Besides, if our suspicions are right, then your forcefulness might have attracted him rather than frightened him away."

Javert cast his mind back to the evening at the restaurant. "Perhaps you're right." He stroked Valjean's muscled flank. "My dear friend, you are the unwilling subject of so many submissive desires."

"Nonsense. I gladly welcome _your_ submissive desires," Valjean said, and put his large arm over Javert's chest, reminding him of its brawny, unmatched strength. He continued with shy pride, "You had noted my skills in that arena are improving. That said, on occasion one might wish a taste ... to perhaps put another cravat to some other use. On me, that is. What do you think?"

"You should not encourage the Inspector," Javert said, the teasing note gone from his voice as he considered the wanton image his friend's words conjured for him.

Valjean ducked his face into Javert's arm and, thus muffled, said, "Anything that would allow you to find pleasure should be encouraged." 

Javert struggled against a rising wave of emotion. He cupped Valjean's face in his hands and turned it upward towards the light. "There is no need to hide yourself from me," he said fiercely. "There is nothing to be ashamed of. We have seen through the worst of times, where we were the other's bitterest enemy. If we can somehow reclaim those wasted days now, by making use of them in our time together in bed? I cannot tell you how much pleasure that would give me." He kissed Valjean again, this time very gently. "I know you would never dream of wanting anything for yourself; just imagine that it will always be what I want, too."

Valjean met his eyes squarely. He wound his fingers around Javert's wrist, anchoring him against the shadows of the past and this new, hopeful re-framing of the same shadows in their bright present, their now. "This is still something new for us both, Javert. I will try to give you more warning next time, and it might be best to go more slowly, in any case."

"Then that is how we will proceed," Javert said. "I suspect it will take a long time to lure Pierre Schifferly back to your side, in any event."

"Our side," Valjean said, and kissed him back.

**Author's Note:**

> For Ella, for services above and beyond the call of duty in betaing my sub!Javert story, and who expressed the sneaking desire for Valjean to run off with a certain banker ;) In gratitude, I tried to make her something (an assortment of somethings) she might prefer instead. Various homages to her supremely hot [Sins of the Mind-verse](http://archiveofourown.org/series/329569), including the _talking_.
> 
> Schifferly takes Valjean to [the Ledoyen](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ledoyen), a very fancy fine dining restaurant in a garden at the edge of the Champs-Elysees, that was most celebrated in the period and that apparently was the venue of much 19th century trysting and illicit activity.
> 
> Thanks to Sir_Bedevere for the line beta and for forming the cravat club with me - we're always looking for new members!


End file.
